The name Pulex, given to the Flea by the Romans, is stated by Isodorus to have been derived from pulvis, dust, quasi pulveris filius. Our English name Flea, and the German Flock, are evidently deduced from the quick motions of this insect.
As to the origin of Fleas, Moufet had a similar notion to that contained in the word Pulex, if we adopt the etymology of Isodorus, for he says they are produced from the dust, especially when moistened with urine, the smallest ones springing from putrid matter. Scaliger relates that they are produced from the moistened humors among the hairs of dogs.[1016] Conformable to the curious notion of Moufet, Shakspeare says:
2 Car. I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench.
1 Car. Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne’er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.
2 Car. Why, they will allow us ne’er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your chamber-ley breeds fleas like a loach.[1017]
“Martyr, the author of the Decads of Navigation, writes, that in Perienna, a countrey of the Indies, the drops of sweat that fall from their slaves’ bodies will presently turn to Fleas.”[1018]
Ewlin, in his book of Travels in Turkey, has recorded a singular tradition of the history of the Flea and its confraternity, as preserved among a sect of Kurds, who dwelt in his time at the foot of Mount Sindshar. “When Noah’s
Ark,” says the legend, “sprung a leak by striking against a rock in the vicinity of Mount Sindshar, and Noah despaired altogether of safety, the serpent promised to help him out of his mishap if he would engage to feed him upon human flesh after the deluge had subsided. Noah pledged himself to do so; and the serpent coiling himself up, drove his body into the fracture and stopped the leak. When the pluvious element was appeased, and all were making their way out of the ark, the serpent insisted upon the fulfillment of the pledge he had received; but Noah, by Gabriel’s advice, committed the pledge to the flames, and scattering its ashes in the air, there arose out of them Fleas, Flies, Lice, Bugs, and all such sort of vermin as prey upon human blood, and after this fashion was Noah’s pledge redeemed.”[1019]
The Sandwich Islanders have the following tradition in regard to the introduction of Fleas into their country: Many years ago a woman from Waimea went out to a ship to see her lover, and as she was about to return, he gave her a bottle, saying that there was very little valuable property (waiwai) contained in it, but that she must not open it, on any account, until she reached the shore. As soon as she gained the beach, she eagerly uncorked the bottle to examine her treasure, but nothing was to be discovered,—the Fleas hopped out, and “they have gone on hopping and biting ever since.”[1020]
Our pigmy tormentor, Pulex irritans, in the opinion of some, seems to have been regarded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. “Dear Miss,” said a lively old lady to a friend of Kirby and Spence (who had the misfortune to be confined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining that the Fleas tormented her), “don’t you like Fleas? Well, I think they are the prettiest little merry things in the world.—I never saw a dull Flea in all my life.”[1021] Dr. Townson, as mentioned by the above writers, from the encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vaulters, as supplying the place of an alarum and driving us from the bed of sloth, should seem to have regarded them with the same happy feelings.[1022]